Redshift
by Firebirdie
Summary: Three thousand years since the Great Galactic War, and the Jedi are still playing mind games with their apprentices. When a very confused Sith Lord interrupts Ezra's test on Lothal, his education takes a turn for the strange.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** I do not like how Kanan and the Ghost crew treat Ezra. I do not like how the narrative seems to think that the way they treat him is okay. I do not like how the writers want me to buy into the idea that they're some kind of constantly-bickering-but-still-loving Space Family. They're not being a family to Ezra. Or if they are, it's pretty damn dysfunctional.

So why this fic? Because Ezra deserves better. I want him to be happy. I want him to have someone in his corner, fighting for him rather than trying to mold him into a good little Jedi. I want him to know that he is worth fighting for whether he's a good little Jedi or not.

And obviously the natural choice for alternative mentor figure is . . . my SWTOR main? Okay, then. *shrug* And, uh, if the character tags weren't warning enough, my main is a Sith Warrior, so if nice Sith aren't your thing, look elsewhere, because Evren is a marshmallow.

Did I mention this was pure self-indulgence? Because it's definitely pure self-indulgence. Whoops.

 **REDSHIFT**

 **Chapter One: Nightmares**

 _In which a test of character goes a bit awry._

 **o.O.o**

"This was frightening at first, I'll grant, but every subsequent iteration becomes progressively more tedious," Evren says loudly, his voice echoing up and down the carved stone corridor. There's no answer from the temple itself, or the _delightful_ hallucinations it's been throwing at him for the past hour.

He contemplates the dead end before him, mouth twisting in irritation. Servant One looms over a pair of mangled corpses. Vette's and Jaesa's. Charming. An aura of dread shrouds the entire scene—turn back, flee, don't look and perhaps it won't be true—

Oh, that's just cheap, trying to influence his emotional state with amateurish projection. This temple may be ancient, but it's hardly sophisticated once the initial shock passes.

Looking past the gruesome illusion, Evren eyes the wall behind Servant One. It might be possible to break through to the other side, but he has no idea what lies beyond. Could be the way out, could be a very long and very fatal drop into the depths of . . . wherever this is. But the faint Force signatures he's been following are in this direction, and it's not as though he has a great many other options.

He really hates this temple.

That, in the end, is the deciding factor. It's rather satisfying to break through the wall with a Force blast. It's somewhat less satisfying to watch the resultant rubble crush his screaming, pleading mother and father, but he suspects the temple is just peeved at the damage he's caused.

"Find some new material, you wretched little rock pile," Evren mutters, picking his way through the debris and ignoring the blank, accusatory eyes of his parents' bodies.

For a moment, he thinks his efforts might have been for nothing—the glow of his off-hand saber reveals a small ledge overlooking what appears to be an empty chasm, rather than a convenient path out. But as his eyes adjust, he makes out the faint outlines of tall pillars, supporting an unseen ceiling, their sides carved with more of the geometric patterns that cover the walls and floor of this place. And—there. A dim patch of illumination below and a ways off to the right. There's someone moving in the gloom. Running. The light follows them as if it can't be bothered to exist where it remains unobserved. Their Force signature is muffled and muted, a pale spark choked by thick clinging fog.

Fog that slowly burns away the longer Evren looks. Just as the illusions have become less horrifyingly real, so does the figure down below become clearer. Blue-back hair, orange jumpsuit. Evren senses fear, and grief, and—and _light_ —

That's a Jedi padawan. A very young, very _terrified_ Jedi padawan.

There's a familiar snap-hiss-hum, and from the passageway from which the Jedi came, there emerges a pallid, black-clad figure with some kind of red-bladed saberstaff. Another Sith. Wonderful. But Evren can't feel anything from the newcomer beyond the tangled panic emanating from the boy—who stumbles and falls, now cornered. Quite possibly about to be sliced to ribbons.

Another vision, then, but not his own.

Time to see if this temple can juggle two people's worst fears at once.

He sends his off-hand blade scything towards the Sith, who bats the saber aside with ease and swings round to face him, eyes gleaming yellow, as Evren calls it back to hand. He drops from the ledge overlooking the chamber, landing at a crouch. He ignites his other blade and flourishes them both idly as he rises to an aggressive opening stance, the points scoring the carved stones at his feet in showers of sparks.

"Tormenting half-trained padawans? Really?" he sneers, stalking forward. "That's just low."

The illusory Sith—a Pau'an—bares his sharp, sharp teeth. "You should not be here."

"And I might actually give a damn if I had the faintest idea where _here_ was, but alas." He advances another step. Behind the Sith, the padawan has scrabbled into the relative shelter of a fallen pillar, breathing hard. He's _unarmed_ , without even a training blade to defend himself—

"You should not be here," the Pau'an Sith repeats, voice oddly heavy and layered. At which point the saberstaff starts _spinning_.

Evren's jaw drops. "Oh, you have got to be joking . . ."

 **o.O.o**

Ezra hunkers down behind the pillar, still shaking. He's alive. He's alive and this is—has to be—some kind of joke. Why would anyone help him? Everything else in this temple seems to want him dead or worse, so . . . Is this another part of the test? More visions? Where's the catch?

He peers over the top of the pillar. He can barely see what's going on past the red arcs of their blades but the new guy seems to be holding his own okay. Not much Ezra can do in any case. So he hides, tries to ignore the part of him that's screaming _why aren't you even trying, you're useless, some Jedi_ —

"What, no personal demons this time?" New Guy calls out, doing some kind of feint that forces the Inquisitor to retreat or get sliced in half. "Running out of ideas, are we?"

The Inquisitor recovers, surges in to counterattack. New Guy stands his ground and sweeps his lightsabers out to the sides, then forward—the Force seems to rip open, then come crashing back together with the motion, and the Inquisitor goes flying before he can land a hit. His blades hiss down to nothing. And then he's just . . . gone. Vanished into the darkness of the chamber.

New Guy cocks his head to the side for a second or two, then relaxes. He deactivates his sabers and turns to Ezra's hiding place. "We should have at least a few minutes' reprieve," he says. "You're safe for now." His accent is clipped, kind of sharp-sounding, but Ezra can't place it.

Slowly, Ezra stands up. His knees don't give out, so that's . . . something, but he can still feel the shaking in his chest, in his hands. "Hey, uh, thanks for the save," he says, trying not to sound like he's this close to losing it. He crosses his arms to hide the trembling. "You're not a vision, right?"

The guy's smile flashes bright against his dark skin. "Last I checked, no."

"Oh. Good. Um, I'm Ezra."

"Evren—a pleasure to meet you, though the circumstances could be much less, ah, harrowing." Evren pauses, then says, "Not to be rude, but how does a Jedi apprentice end up alone and unarmed in a place like this?"

Ezra twitches a little. "Who said I was a Jedi?" he says cautiously.

"If you are not, the question still stands—a temple or tomb this saturated in the Force is hardly something you stumble into by accident."

"Well, how'd _you_ get in here, then?" Ezra retorts.

"I don't know." Evren presses his lips together. They're tattooed, reddish fanglike markings that extend over his chin, down his throat. Could be a personal thing, could be a cultural thing; either way, Ezra has no idea what they're supposed to mean. Evren says, "I'm inclined to blame an acquaintance of mine with a tendency to poke at things she really shouldn't, but for the time being . . . We should probably try to find a way out of here."

Ezra would love to get out of here. Who is he kidding—he's scared, he's beyond scared, and he could've died down here and then even if Kanan's still alive he'd die too, it takes a Master and Padawan to open the door and if he fails this _Kanan will die._

He can't fail. He can't let himself fail. He couldn't stop the Inquisitor vision-thing from killing Kanan but if that was just another hallucination then there's still a chance, and he has to do this.

"I'm . . . okay, yeah, I'm a padawan. And I'm supposed to be looking for something in here," Ezra says haltingly.

Evren raises his eyebrows. "Looking for what?"

"I don't know, just—something!"

"How can you possibly look for something if you don't know what it is?"

"I don't _know_!" Ezra nearly shouts, and no, his voice does not crack. "Look, I want to get outta here, I do, but I can't go back without figuring this out—"

"I've been in places like this before. It will kill you," Evren says, expression unreadable. "Or bend you until you break. Whatever lesson you're meant to learn in here, whatever you're supposed to do, _is not worth it._ You don't need to play its game."

"It's not a game," Ezra says miserably. "It's a test. And I can't fail it. I can't."

"Your life is more important than proving anything to a sadistic embarrassment to architecture."

Ezra almost laughs. Almost. "It's not just my life."

"Your master?"

". . . Yeah."

Evren nods, pale eyes going a little unfocused for a second, then snapping back to Ezra. "I sense a Jedi somewhere nearby. He's alive. Whatever horrors this temple cares to throw at us, I swear that you and he will be reunited."

 **o.O.o**

They've been walking for what feels like forever when the illusions start up again. Nothing Ezra recognizes, though. An old man in ornate armor with a hole burned through his chest, laughing hoarsely as he whispers about betrayal. A golden-eyed being with skin covered in swirling blue and white patterns, smiling, silent.

Then a woman in dark robes. Her eyes glow red, and her face is marked with more of those tattoos, down her cheeks and across her forehead. Her neck is bent at an unnatural angle. She's smiling, too. "I'm so proud of you," she says.

Ezra's skin crawls, and he finds himself drifting closer to Evren, who says, "Ignore her. She can't hurt you."

Ezra skitters sideways anyway to avoid the apparition-phantom-thing. "Who is she?"

"A relative."

"Oh—sorry."

"Don't be. I'm the one who killed her," Evren says cheerfully.

Ezra blinks a couple of times, then coughs. Okay then. He'll just . . . not touch that. "So, uh, you have any idea where we're actually going? This place is a maze even when it's not changing on us."

They've reached an intersection of corridors, three paths in front of them. "Your master is close," Evren says. "I'm following his Force signature."

"You can do that?" It's not—surprising, exactly; Ezra sometimes gets a vague sense of where Kanan is when they're on the _Ghost_ together. But it's not something he'd be able to just follow.

. . . Also he really does not want to think about that last vision or Evren's reaction to it so yeah, better to focus on literally anything else.

Evren's nodding. "Bit like listening for a specific voice in a crowded room. It takes practice, and your target can often be drowned out by surrounding noise, but—actually, this is an ideal place for it. You already have a bond as Master and Padwan, or the beginnings of it, and as far as I can tell I am the only other person in the temple aside from the two of you. Care to try?"

"I guess." So . . . listening. Except with the Force. Which he can barely use. This is gonna be awesome.

He closes his eyes, scowling in concentration. There's listening, and then there's _listening_ , he knows that, but he can't just switch between the two whenever he wants, otherwise Kanan'd be a lot less frustrated and disappointed with him.

Yeah, not thinking about that, either. Ezra breathes, and tries to keep his mind clear, and—this is like the thing with the lothcat, or the fyrnocks, isn't it? Or it could be. Maybe. Except not, because Kanan's not right in front of him and Ezra's on his own for this one—

"You know how your master feels, in the Force. You know what to look for," Evren's saying. "Take your time. And if you catch something familiar, focus on that feeling, and follow where it leads."

 _Kanan_. Balancing above a precipice, stumbling along, sense of falling and then being _caught_ , lifted to safety. Flashes of warmth that Ezra clings to with everything he's got.

It's quiet in the temple, dead silent, it feels _dead_ , but there's—something. Two somethings. One right next to him but . . . locked down, somehow, muffled to the point where he can barely tell it's there—that's Evren, apparently. And the other . . . Faint, and far away, but it's—Ezra reaches out for it and then—

"Got him!" he says.

"Well done," says Evren. Ezra can hear the smile in his voice. And he can feel another one of those sense-flashes, this one weirdly _off_ , like it's out of tune or something, but still proud—proud of Ezra, of what he can do.

It—okay, so he just met the guy, but it means a lot.

"He's your master," Evren says. "Lead on."

Ezra opens his eyes again. "Okay. This way," he says, angling towards the leftmost passage, something in his head clicking into place.

 **o.O.o**

 _tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** At last, an update!

 **Chapter 2: Egress**

 _In which confusion abounds._

 **o.O.o**

"I came in through here," Ezra says, laying a palm against the stone door. "Not sure how to open it, but the exit's on the other side."

Evren eyes the door for a minute, then motions Ezra aside. He skitters back a few steps but hangs close, curious. "So, uh, what's the plan?"

"The direct approach," says Evren. He extends a hand, frowning a little. The Force goes cold. Then it _burns_ like black-hot metal, and the door just—breaks. Explosively. Fragments of rock clatter to the ground in a haze of dust, leaving an opening large enough for them to pass.

"Direct, huh?" Ezra says faintly.

Evren shrugs. "I'm not in the mood to ask it nicely."

"Uh- _huh_ . . ."

 **o.O.o**

Something's wrong. Through their slowly-deepening bond, Kanan can sense the edges of Ezra's fear and grief, as whatever the temple's showing him takes its toll. But that's what's meant to happen—the whole point of this trial is to see if Ezra can handle his fears like a Jedi.

No, the wrongness is something else. External— _other_. A shadow with nothing to cast it, seen out of the corner of his eye.

Kanan waits alongside the bones of long-dead Jedi Masters, closes his eyes, and tells himself that Ezra will be fine.

Then the door to the temple interior shatters in a blast of focused rage.

Kanan's on his feet, saber in hand, before the rock shards have finished falling. He searches the dust-filled gloom—bad, this is _bad_ , where's—

Ezra comes through what's left of the doorway, stumbling a bit over the rubble. His eyes widen. He rushes forward as relief surges past the darkness. "Kanan! You're okay!" he says.

Kanan would check him over for injuries if he could, but they've got other problems. A second figure emerges from the gloom. Human, black armor, lightsabers at his sides. Kanan's skin crawls, a cold sick feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. Shields or not . . . "Ezra, get behind me."

"Wait, what? Why?"

" _Now_ , Ezra," he says, pivoting and stepping between his apprentice and the newcomer when Ezra just stands there looking confused.

The guy clears his throat. "I think we may be getting off on the wrong—"

"Shut up and tell me how you got into this temple," Kanan says.

"What's the problem, here?" Ezra's saying, baffled.

"I mean you no harm, Jedi. There's no reason to—"

"He's a darksider, Ezra, like the Inquisitor," says Kanan. "And he shouldn't even be here."

"People keep telling me that," he mutters. He shifts his weight, just enough to make dropping into a fighting stance that much easier. "I have no idea how I came to be here, and I'd just as soon have avoided it entirely were it not for the fact that your apprentice was, ah . . ."

"Kind of about to die horribly," Ezra puts in.

Kanan darts a glance back at Ezra. He doesn't look hurt, he doesn't seem scared or nervous—no more so than he was when he first went into the temple itself, maybe even less. Then he looks back at the darksider. "What's your angle, huh?"

The darksider slowly points at one of the brown-robed corpses still in meditative pose on the floor. "Preventing _that._ "

"Kanan, come on, he saved my life." Ezra sounds almost annoyed, now. He steps out from behind Kanan, drifts sideways until he's equidistant from him and the darksider. "I know we're all having lots of fun with the awkward standoff, but could we please _get out of here_ first?"

. . . This is all wrong. Why isn't Ezra _listening to him?_ Why is he defending someone who oozes exactly the same kind of malice as the Inquisitor?

"I'd like to not be surrounded by architecture that wants to kill me," the darksider says agreeably.

Ezra snorts. "I thought it was more the creepy visions that wanted to kill us."

"Look at that stonework," says the darksider, waving a hand at the debris scattered over the floor. "It is _clearly_ architecture of ill intent."

Kanan takes a breath. Okay. Not immediately hostile, but still up to something. It's pretty transparent, actually—mess with Ezra's head, sabotage his Jedi trial to keep him from learning what he _needs_ to learn. "Ezra, can I talk to you for a minute?" Kanan says, calmly.

"Yeah, sure," Ezra says with a shrug. And he moves away from the darksider, and the darksider lets him go. Thank the Force.

Kanan guides him a few paces further, then turns and takes him by the shoulders. Ezra pulls a face and won't look him in the eye. "You need to be careful," Kanan says, voice pitched low. "The dark side isn't just losing control of your anger and fear, or acting out of desperation. It can seem friendly, even helpful, but all it wants is to destroy."

"Yeah, _it_ sure does like destroying homicidal visions and locked doors," Ezra mutters.

Kanan resists the urge to shake his apprentice until he gets it through his head that this isn't a joke. He thought Ezra understood the dangers, after Anaxes, but . . . No, he's pretty sure Ezra _does_ understand. He's just stressed and frustrated, so he's latching onto the first person who offers an easy way out.

He glances past Ezra. The darksider is kneeling beside one of the Jedi corpses to examine it. As Kanan watches, he stands up, shaking his head. He seems to sense Kanan's focus, then, and turns to meets his eyes, practically a challenge.

"Kanan," Ezra says. "Let's just go, okay?"

And that's what Kanan _really_ does not want to think about. Ezra hasn't passed the test yet. He'd been so sure Ezra was ready, but—maybe he was wrong. Maybe he just panicked because of Ezra's brush with darkness, pushed him into something he wasn't prepared for. Or maybe something else has gone wrong. Maybe it's not either of their faults—neither of them had any way of knowing that a damned _darksider_ would, impossibly, show up here of all places in the middle of a Jedi trial. But the fact remains that until or unless Ezra proves himself ready to become a Jedi, they're not going anywhere.

And then a low, ominous rumbling echoes through the chamber. The whole room starts to shake. Kanan glances up at the ceiling as a few bits of rock fall nearby, and dust drifts down after them. "You _broke the temple_?" he says, incredulous.

"I didn't hit anything load-bearing," protests the darksider.

A very large slab of stone smashes into the ground only a few meters away from them. Ezra yelps, Kanan jumps, and the darksider looks like he's trying not to bolt.

The rumbling gets louder. The shaking gets worse. The Force shrills a warning as the temple begins to collapse.

Kanan grabs Ezra's shoulder once more. Test or no test, they have no choice. "We have to open the main doors again—come on!"

Ezra stiffens but doesn't yank himself away for once. "I don't think—"

"Good, don't think, just _do_." Kanan takes off, tugging Ezra alongside, as chunks of masonry come crashing down around them. He stops in front of the door, raises his hands, and finds the calm in the midst of the noise and danger, the stillness at his center. Beside him, Ezra is struggling, panic squirming in the Force around him. He isn't letting go of it, it's keeping him unbalanced, the door isn't moving, and if they can't get it open—

"Ezra, _focus_ ," Kanan says.

"I'm trying!"

"Ezra—!"

"Enough," the darksider says, moving to Ezra's other side. "There's no time. Help me break through."

"You breaking things is what got us into this mess in the first place—"

"We can debate that when we're not about to be _crushed_ , Jedi! Strike that crack, there, with everything you have, on three—"

The pillars around them start to come down.

Ezra's voice rises over the chaos. "THREE!"

 **o.O.o**

Somehow, they're not dead. Evren approves of not dying in cave-ins. No limbs lost this time, either, so that's a bonus. He'd like it even better if that particular thought had never entered his head, but at least he's not utterly incapacitated by it—still, his hands are shaking and he can smell Quesh venom and detonite and he would really appreciate it if his brain would just—not do this. That would be nice.

He, Ezra, and the Jedi Master apparently called Kanan have run clear of the temple and halfway to the small shuttle on a nearby hilltop before Kanan gets in front of the group and rounds on Evren, forcing a halt. "We're leaving. Don't come near us again."

Breathe. They're not trapped under a mountain's worth of unforgiving stone. They're out, under a pearl-bright open sky. And grouchy Jedi, he can deal with. Sometimes he's even managed to talk them around. Evren raises an eyebrow. "I wouldn't dream of it. Could I at least trouble you for the name of this planet? Perhaps the location of the nearest settlement?"

"How can you not know what planet you're on?" Ezra says.

"Last I knew I was on Dromund Kaas, but since we're not up to our knees in mud, I can only assume we're elsewhere." Not to mention the absurdity of a Jedi master-padawan pair messing about at the heart of the Empire, but, well, mostly the lack of mud. And the longer they're outside, the gentler the Force becomes, the temple's malevolence draining away and leaving something almost peaceful.

"Okay, that's . . . weird." Ezra shakes his head. "Never heard of it, but it sounds real fun. We're on Lothal—"

"Ezra," Kanan says sharply.

Evren blinks. "Er—Dromund Kaas? The Imperial capital?"

"Capital is Coruscant, or Imperial Center or whatever we're supposed to call it," says Ezra, frowning.

"But Coruscant is the capital of the Republic," Evren says blankly.

"Yeah, it _was_ , but now it's the Empire."

" _What?_ "

"Ezra!"

"What?"

Kanan has folded his arms and is scowling at the two of them. Mostly at Evren. It's almost as if he doesn't like him. "We're _leaving,_ " he repeats.

"We can't just leave him here!" says Ezra.

"He," Kanan says, "is obviously capable of taking care of himself."

Evren sets aside the issue of Coruscant and Dromund Kaas—and oh, what an issue it is—and drags his focus back to more immediate problems. " _He_ is standing right here," he says mildly. " _His_ name is Evren Straik. And _he_ would very much prefer to not be abandoned in the middle of nowhere on . . . Lothal, was it?"

"Yep." Ezra raises his chin, expression mulish in spite of Kanan's glare. "Just to the spaceport, okay?"

"We don't have enough fuel on the shuttle to make it to the spaceport and back," Kanan grinds out.

"So we take the ship."

"We are _not_ bringing him on board the ship!"

"Kanan, come on, I owe him."

"You don't owe me anything," Evren says, practically in unison with Kanan's "You don't owe him anything."

Ezra throws his hands in the air. "Well, I still want to help!"

Kanan pinches the bridge of his nose. "And that's admirable, Ezra, it really is, but this isn't—"

"You said the Empire might know about this temple and have it under surveillance," Ezra says. "The longer we stand around here, the better the chance they'll realize we're here."

"Is this world under Imperial control, then?" Evren says, now thoroughly confused. "I mean, it works out fine for me, I can simply requisition transport, but why would you be undergoing Jedi trials on a planet we've conquered? Why not Tython, or Ilum?"

"The whole galaxy's under Imperial control," says Ezra, but Kanan has frozen and is watching him with renewed suspicion, if such a thing is even possible.

" _Requisition_ transport? Who the hell are you?" he demands.

"Sith can requisition near-anything from the Imperial military," Evren says blankly. "It's hardly unusual to—"

" _Sith?!_ "

He's about to say something snide when Ezra's comment registers, and then—"Wait, did you say the _entire galaxy_? How is that possible—"

"What's a Sith?" says Ezra.

Evren stares at him. " _What_."

"The ancient enemy of the Jedi," Kanan snarls. He activates his lightsaber and brandishes it at him. "You're supposed to be extinct."

"Whoa, Kanan, _wait!_ " says Ezra. "He hasn't done anything to us! So—so can we maybe not do the whole lightsaber duel thing?"

A horrible thought begins to take shape.

"Before we fight to the death, or whatever you're hoping for," Evren says, backing up a few steps and raising his hands placatingly, "I have one question. How long ago was the Treaty of Coruscant?"

Blink. "The what?"

"The—the ceasefire agreement between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic."

Ezra looks utterly lost, but Kanan is hesitating instead of attacking.

"The Great Galactic War?" Evren says desperately.

Kanan's eyes narrow. "Ancient history."

"How ancient?"

". . . Thirty-five hundred years."

Evren drops his hands. "Well, _shit_."

 **o.O.o**

 _tbc_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I've gotten a few messages asking for screencaps of Evren, but sadly, FFN does not like links. This story is also posted to my AO3, though, and I've added a few links to the Chapter 3 notes there—my username over there is pomegrenadier. Sorry for the inconvenience :-/

 **Chapter 3: Future Tense**

 _In which the Ghost crew makes introductions and decisions._

 **o.O.o**

"Hey, welcome back—whoa," Sabine says as the shuttle airlock hisses open and three people, not two, clamber out. First Kanan, scowling like he's trying to crush his enemies between his eyebrows, then Ezra looking shifty, then another human in black body armor. All three of them are liberally sprinkled with rock dust.

"Uh. Everything okay?" she asks.

"No," Kanan says flatly, brushing past her. He shoots a glare back at the new guy. "You, stay here. Ezra, with me. Sabine, don't let _him_ go anywhere."

"And _he_ is . . .?" she tries. Too late, though. They're gone, sliding down the ladder into the lounge, probably heading to the cockpit to talk to Hera, and Sabine's left guarding the newcomer in the cramped shuttle bay. Okay then. It's not like anyone ever tells her anything, anyway.

"Evren Straik," the guy says with a half-bow. "Erm. Sabine, was it?"

"That's me," she says. "Gotta say, I wasn't expecting them to pick up a passenger while they were off on their training thing."

"Believe me," says Evren, voice dry, "I was not expecting to run into them, either."

"What's got Kanan all riled up?" Not that she's expecting an honest answer, but hey, she might as well make conversation.

"Inconvenient time travel, primarily."

"Pfft," Sabine snorts. But Evren isn't laughing with her. She raises an eyebrow. "Come on, you're not serious."

He gives a little wave. "Hello. I'm from what I _dearly_ hope is the end of the Great Galactic War."

". . . Right. Uh. Sure."

 **o.O.o**

"Do you believe him?" says Hera.

"It doesn't matter what I believe," Kanan says, trying to pace across the cockpit. There's not enough room to build up much steam. That's probably a good thing, Ezra thinks, wedged in the corner by the navicomputer.

Kanan continues, "He's here, he's dangerous, and he wants _something_ from us."

"Yeah. A ride to the spaceport," Ezra mutters.

"If the Inquisitor showed up and asked for something harmless, would you give it to him?" Kanan says.

"No, but the Inquisitor's never saved my life from freaky Force hallucinations, either. Why aren't you at least giving Evren the benefit of the doubt?"

Kanan makes a frustrated noise and turns again, ponytail flapping behind him. "You don't understand—it's not—"

Hera catches Kanan's shoulder the next time he passes her. They look at each other, doing their whole silent communication thing. Kanan sighs and bows his head; Hera squeezes his shoulder and says, "He doesn't have any way of knowing, love."

"I know," says Kanan.

Ezra wants to beat his head against the console. "Know _what?_ The whole 'Sith' thing?"

Kanan closes his eyes for a minute. Then he shuffles forward and flops down in his jump seat, next to Ezra. Hera takes the pilot's chair and turns it enough to keep them in view.

Rubbing his face, Kanan says, slowly, "The Sith were monsters, Ezra. They split off from the Jedi soon after the founding of the Order, because they refused to follow the Council's ruling against using the dark side of the Force. They tried to wipe out the Jedi again and again, and they came all too close on more than one occasion. They'd kill everyone—Masters, Knights, Padawans . . . younglings. Or worse, they'd turn the ones they captured to the dark side, too. They _hated_ the Jedi. But we pushed them back, every time. We survived, just like we're surviving now—and about a thousand years ago, we defeated them for good."

"So the Inquisitor _isn't_ a Sith?"

"No. The Inquisitor is dangerous, but he's just a tool of the Empire. Sith are . . . worse."

Ezra shakes his head. "Okay, fine, but Evren—"

"If," Kanan says, " _if_ he's telling the truth, _if_ he really is a Sith Lord, then I guarantee you, he's no friend to us. We can't trust him."

"Then why did you leave him in back with just Sabine?" Ezra says pointedly.

"He hasn't attacked us yet, which means he still thinks he can use us. And I have a feeling he might be targeting you. Trying to turn you."

"And, uh, why would he do that?"

"It's _what they do,_ Ezra. They take well-meaning people, good people, and twist them around so far they don't know what's right or wrong anymore. They're _evil_."

Ezra frowns, looks away. It's not that he doesn't trust Kanan's judgement, it's just . . . But what does he know, really? He only met Evren a couple hours ago. Except he never felt like he was being manipulated, not once. Which could just mean that Evren is _really good_ at manipulation. Or it could mean he was only trying to help.

"So what do you propose we do?" Hera asks.

 **o.O.o**

"Throw in those brellberries, they're almost past it anyway—what do you think, muja or meiloorun?"

Evren laughs sheepishly. "I'm not familiar with either. Sorry."

Sabine rolls her eyes and starts dicing the meiloorun as Evren dumps the very ripe brellberries into the blender. They've relocated to the galley, because it was just plain awkward in the shuttle bay and also Sabine is _starving_. "Yeah, I'm actually starting to believe the whole time travel thing if you don't know about _muja fruits_."

"Could be a cultural issue, rather than temporal," he muses. "Perhaps they're from a part of the galaxy we never made contact with."

"Sith Empire? Maybe. Except muja's a Mandalorian thing, and we were allies back in the day, so . . ." Sabine swipes the meiloorun in after the berries using the flat of her knife, then sets the cutting board and knife down and starts fiddling with the blender settings. "You meet any Mandos back then?"

"A few, yes," says Evren, taking knife and cutting board to the sink to rinse. "Briefly. While under fire."

"Wow, amazing, it's like I'm there," Sabine says. She turns the blender on. The chopped-up fruit quickly disintegrates into something more smoothie-like. "Come on, you've gotta have stories . . ."

"Erm."

"Oh, you're a _shy_ time traveler. Got it."

"You know me so well already," Evren says, bone-dry.

Sabine shrugs, shuts off the blender, and snags two cups from the storage shelf. "No, I really do get it. Want any?"

He looks wrong-footed for a second, then seems to pull himself together. "Please."

Sabine pours them both generous portions of slightly gloppy whizzed-up fruit, then raises her cup. " _K'oyaci_ ," she says, and takes a gulp. It's not too bad. Kinda over-sweet thanks to the brellberries, and the protein powder she added for _nutritional value_ mostly tastes like stale dust, but hey, it's food.

Evren returns the toast, drinks, and pauses. He swallows. "What a unique flavor profile," he says delicately.

Sabine snickers.

At which point Zeb walks in carrying three crates of supplies, muttering curses under his breath as he staggers into the galley with Chopper edging up on his heels. "Sabine, a little help . . .?"

"Eh, you look like you've got it under control," she says, sipping her smoothie.

"Sabine—!" Zeb loses his balance trying to keep the top crate from falling, wobbles, and starts to keel over when Chopper bumps him from behind. He recovers, barely. The crates don't.

They topple, and Sabine tenses up in anticipation of the inevitable crash.

It never comes. They just . . . stop, and float, and then gently set themselves down on the floor. Sabine glances over at Evren, who's standing with his free hand outstretched towards the crates. He draws it back in and raises his cup to his face, hiding behind it.

Chopper grumbles something Sabine can't quite make out, but she's pretty sure the droid is disappointed at the lack of carnage.

Zeb blinks at the crates, then at Evren. "Thanks," he says, phrasing it like a question. "So what are you supposed to be, then? Another Jedi?"

"Not exactly," Evren mumbles into his smoothie.

"He's not a Jedi," Kanan says, entering the galley with Hera and Ezra just behind him. He raises an eyebrow at Sabine. "I told you not to let him go anywhere."

"What? I was hungry."

Beside her along the aft wall, Evren has gone dead still. There are now five people between him and the galley exit. He looks between Kanan, Zeb, and Hera like he's gauging whether or not he can make a break for it. Whether or not he'll have to fight his way out. Sabine lays a hand on his arm, half in concern—she knows that trapped, twitchy look—and half in warning. _Don't even think about it, buddy._

Kanan watches the interplay for a moment, then folds his arms. "Ezra thinks we should drop you off at Capital City. I want a guarantee you won't sell us out to the Empire the second you get the chance."

Evren takes a long sip of smoothie. Hard to tell if he's being rude on purpose, or buying himself time. He swallows. "My word will not suffice, I take it," he says.

"Convince me."

Evren glances at Ezra, then back at Kanan. "And if I cannot?"

"Then we're gonna have a problem."

"You'll kill me."

"Of course not," Ezra says immediately, but Kanan just stands there, stone-faced. Yikes. Sabine almost feels sorry for the new guy. And Ezra's picking up on the conspicuous lack of response from Kanan, too—he looks up at him and says, "Because that would be _wrong_."

Evren sets his smoothie down on the galley countertop, motions slow and steady. Except for his eyes. He keeps darting glances at the doorway. "This is not my Empire. Why should I aid it in any way, when it would only draw unwanted attention from those I'd rather not learn of my existence at all?"

"Why wouldn't you want them to know about you?" says Kanan.

"If your Empire is anything like mine, those in power will probably not react well to anything outside their control. I have no desire to be _controlled_."

" _Your_ Empire?" Zeb says.

That derails the conversation for a few minutes as Ezra introduces Hera, Chopper, and Zeb to Evren, and gives a bare-bones explanation of what's going on—time traveling Sith, okay, sure, it doesn't sound any less crazy the second time around, not to Sabine—and Kanan glowers a lot.

He's still glowering when Evren says, "I have nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. _Please_. Help me."

Sabine pinches the bridge of her nose. The magic words. Hera's going to cave, Ezra's already on-side, and Sabine has to admit that she kinda likes this guy. Plus, well, die-hard Imperials—modern ones, anyway—don't really go for begging.

"That's what we do," Ezra says. "We help people. _Right?_ "

Hera hesitates, then nods, slowly. "I'm willing to shuttle you to the capital." She looks over the rest of the crew. "Any objections?"

"Nope," says Sabine.

Zeb heaves a sigh. "It's, what, two hours to Capital City? Guess I can put up with another Jedi type for that long."

"He's not a Jedi," Kanan repeats, annoyed.

Zeb shrugs. "Saved me a nasty spill, though, which is more than _some of us_ have ever managed." He punches Ezra in the arm, staggering him.

"He's got a point," Sabine says with a laugh at Ezra's scrunched-up face.

"New passenger = disruptive," Chopper honks irritably.

"To _you_ , maybe, you useless rust bucket," says Zeb.

Which just leaves Kanan. He closes his eyes, mutters something under his breath, and then says, "Fine. _Just_ to the spaceport, though. After that, you're on your own."

"Thank you, Master Jedi," Evren says, bowing low.

There's an awkward pause, then Hera says, "All right—Ezra, Sabine, get the new supplies stowed. Kanan, I need my copilot. Chopper, Zeb, fix those port-side hall lights you knocked loose, and _finish it_ this time. Evren . . ."

"If there's anything I can do to help, Captain," he starts.

"That won't be necessary, but thank you for offering," Hera says, not unkindly. "It shouldn't take too long to reach the capital. Just sit tight."

". . . Very well," Evren says.

Hera turns to leave, and Zeb and Chopper follow her out, already bickering over whose fault it was that the hall lights were damaged. Kanan hesitates, then backs away, shooting one last death glare in Evren's direction.

Sabine gulps down the rest of her smoothie, cracks her neck, and stretches. "Okay, let's get this done before takeoff. Unless you wanna save us both a lot of trouble and do your little telekinesis thing."

Ezra blinks. "Um. What?"

She jerks a thumb at Evren, who's still backed into his corner, looking marginally less on-edge. " _He_ can float crates. Pretty nifty trick."

Ezra does that thing he does where he really, honestly has no clue how _obvious_ his inexperience is. He puffs himself up like a little bird and pulls a too-confident smile. "You think I can't?"

"I think you were having trouble levitating tiny rocks last time Kanan tried to teach you how."

"They weren't _that_ tiny!"

"They were _pebbles_ , Ezra."

"Multiple pebbles?" Evren says suddenly.

Ezra nods, wary.

Evren gestures— _there you go._ "Manipulating multiple objects at once is difficult even for Force adepts. I know fully-trained Jedi who struggle with it."

"You are _no fun_ ," Sabine says. "Fine, let's just . . ." She shakes her head and starts unloading food packages into the galley's various cupboards and cabinets. Ezra scrambles to follow suit.

Evren edges past them, out into the lounge. She can't blame the guy—it really is cramped in here, even with just three people rather than seven. And anyway, Ezra's attempts to impress her are usually more embarrassing to watch than funny, so she might've dodged a blaster bolt there.

Sabine reaches for a container. Her hand closes on air as Ezra snags it out from under her and shoves it in the cupboard. "Wow, in a hurry, much?"

"Yeah, maybe," Ezra says. He stuffs three more in after it, then fumbles a fourth and sends them all scattering over the galley floor.

Sabine huffs and puts the containers back in, properly. "Okay, look, if you're just gonna throw everything all over the place, leave it to me. I got this."

"You sure?"

She flaps a hand at him. "Yeah, yeah. Go."

Ezra grins at her. "I owe you one," he says, already halfway out the door.

 **o.O.o**

 _tbc_


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Woo, new chapter.

. . . I feel like now is an appropriate time to reiterate that this story is 100% self-indulgence, and extremely critical of the way the crew treats Ezra. And, uh, the crew in general. As people. And I should also probably emphasize that I _hate_ Star Wars: Rebels. The only reason I'm writing this is because I'm pissed off enough on behalf of the one main character I actually like to do something productive with all this salt.

 **Chapter 4: Entanglements**

 _In which Evren screams internally a lot._

 **o.O.o**

"I don't like this."

"I've been getting that impression, yes," Hera says mildly.

Kanan manages to make the process of sitting down in the copilot's seat look agitated. "If you could sense him in the Force . . . Hera, time travel or no time travel, he's exactly the kind of evil the Jedi are supposed to fight against. And we're giving him a ride."

"Because it's the right thing to do, love." She checks over the ship's diagnostic results and adjusts the power draw to the starboard engine. "Besides, he did help Ezra."

"I know." Kanan presses his fingertips to his eyes for a moment. "That's part of the problem."

"From what Ezra said, he needed the assistance."

"I _know_ ," Kanan says, irritated.

Hera raises an eyebrow at him. "An explanation would be nice."

"Ezra . . . doesn't understand what it means to be a Jedi. Not really. He doesn't understand how _dangerous_ the dark side is. I didn't talk about it, at least at first. Not until the Inquisitor brought it up. I thought . . . But he's _angry_ , Hera, he's full of so much anger and fear, and if he doesn't let go of it, he'll become something terrible."

"And this Sith could push him over the edge."

"Exactly." Kanan looks grim. "Ezra was supposed to learn that, in the temple. And instead our new _passenger_ destroyed it."

Hera swivels her seat around, faces Kanan. "I won't pretend to fully understand the Force, but I do know people. He isn't an immediate threat to us—to Ezra. In the absence of any other viable plans, we don't have much choice but to drop him off at the spaceport. After that, we can worry about the implications of—"

"There's always a choice," Kanan mutters.

"Kanan. What else can we do?"

"I could take him."

"Really?" Hera says sharply. "When the Inquisitor has nearly killed you over and over again? If Sith are _worse_ —no. I don't want to lose you. Ezra can't afford to lose you. We're taking him to the spaceport and _then_ we will figure out what to do if he shows up again."

Kanan looks at her for a long moment, then deflates. He cracks a sheepish smile. "You're right."

"Glad you noticed, love."

"It's just . . . with everything that's happened, it's—" He heaves a sigh. "I need to meditate. A lot."

Hera reaches over, touches his upper arm gently. "It's all right. I'll wake you up if I need help with anything."

Kanan's face softens. Then he puts on a wounded expression. "I haven't fallen asleep meditating in years!"

"Of course, dear."

 **o.O.o**

Even if the _Ghost_ wasn't pretty small to begin with, Ezra wouldn't have to look far to find Evren. He's gone and parked himself at the edge of the corner booth in the lounge, elbows on his knees, head bowed. He's staring at the deck plating like it contains the secrets of the universe.

Ezra clears his throat. "Um . . . Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Evren looks up, seems to shake off whatever had him so distracted. "Of course."

"Why did you help me?" Ezra asks. "I mean—Kanan said Sith and Jedi are enemies. Or they were. We were. Whatever. And if you're from a war between them . . ."

"A war I'm tired of fighting," Evren says dully. "And I mean no offense, but you're not a Knight. Even in my time, you'd still have a few years before you were sent to the front lines. Hopefully."

"Never stopped the Inquisitor from trying to kill me."

"The Pau'an in the temple?"

"Real one's even meaner."

"Charming."

Ezra folds his arms and leans against the ladder up to the shuttle bay. He pokes at a scuff mark on the floor with the toe of his boot. Neither of them seems to know what to say—Sabine strides out of the galley and gives a little wave on her way to her room in the long, long silence, and then Hera announces takeoff over the intercom, and the _Ghost_ judders as it goes airborne.

Eventually, Evren says, "What's it like out there?" He makes a vague gesture. "This new Empire—anything I should worry about?"

"Where do I even start?" Ezra says. Which isn't actually a rhetorical question—how is he supposed to prepare someone from _thirty-five hundred years ago_ for life in the Empire?

. . . Maybe start with how to _stay_ alive. "Okay. If you don't wanna draw attention, stay away from the Imperial military. The soldiers—stormtroopers—they wear white armor. Officers wear grey or black—basically, anybody in monochrome is probably bad news."

That gets a smile. "Monochrome is bad. Understood."

"Don't use the Force or your lightsabers where people can see. The Jedi were almost wiped out, but the Empire still has a standing bounty on them—us. They probably won't see any difference with you."

Evren's eyes widen. "Wiped—what _happened_?"

Ezra grimaces in apology. "I don't know the specifics—nobody really does, not even Kanan, and he was there—but all the propaganda vids say the Jedi betrayed the Republic and tried to overthrow the Emperor—uh, Chancellor, then, this was right before the big changeover. Anyway, he declared them all enemies of the state. Any Jedi who survived their troops turning on them had to go into hiding."

Evren stares at him. "Oh. I—I'm so sorry," he says. "That sounds—awful."

"I was just a baby when this all was happening," Ezra says with a shrug. "Didn't even know I was Jedi material until a few months ago, when I bumped into Kanan and the others on a job."

"A few _months_?" Evren squawks.

"Yeah, so . . .?"

"That's—you—" Evren pinches the bridge of his nose. "Months. Right."

"I can handle myself just fine," Ezra says, annoyed. "But _anyway_ , that was how the Clone Wars ended—aaaaaaand I should probably tell you what that actually was in the first place . . ."

"Please do."

History's not really Ezra's thing, but hey, he knows enough to get by. And it's not like anyone's gonna quiz random apparent citizens on the exact chain of events leading up to the rise of the Empire.

"Just tell people you're from some backwater out on the Rim if there's a problem," says Ezra, after nearly an hour of rambling punctuated by increasingly worried questions from Evren. "Lots of worlds don't have much Imperial traffic, so there's plenty of people who don't pay attention."

"That, at least, hasn't changed," Evren says. He rubs the back of his neck. "Thank you."

"Hey, you saved my life. It's the least I can do." And then Ezra hesitates—they're a little over an hour out from the capital, and Evren is the first Force user Ezra has ever met besides Kanan and the Inquisitor. He has more questions than he has seconds left to ask them, and once Evren leaves, that's it. He might never see another friendly Force-sensitive again.

Ezra takes a deep breath, shifts on his seat across the holotable. "Can I ask you something?"

"What about?" Evren says warily.

"The, uh. The Force."

Evren frowns slightly, tilting his head to one side. "By all means."

Which, well, that's great, but—stars, what can he even _say_?

". . . You made it look easy," Ezra says. "Using the Force, I mean. _Making a connection_. And I just—it's ridiculously hard, for me, it's like my brain just won't _shut up_ most of the time, and I was wondering . . . How?"

Evren opens his mouth, then closes it. He looks down. "It's . . . Long practice, primarily, I suppose—but, erm, I'm told that the dark side _is_ easier to access if not to master, so that might also be a factor . . .?"

He sounds so uncomfortable—Ezra cringes. He doesn't even know what he did, but—stars, he didn't mean to—

 _Warmth._ A feeling like—like curling up under all his blankets in the old comm tower, watching a storm roll in across the grasslands. The Force is _warm_. Heat without light. It's . . . nice. Reassuring. Evren . . .?

"It's all right," he's saying. "You did nothing wrong, Ezra, I'm just uncertain how to help." He glances towards the cockpit, then back at Ezra, cracking a wry smile. "Jedi Padawans don't usually ask Sith Lords for advice."

"Don't know if you noticed, but I'm not all that great at being a Jedi Padawan," Ezra says. It's supposed to be a joke. He sounds bitter even to himself. Fantastic.

"In fairness to you," Evren says lightly, "you are a beginner at all of this. Any Force discipline takes years of practice to truly master. Give it time. You'll figure it out."

He's not _that_ new at Jedi-ing. And he has to learn fast if he wants to survive against the Inquisitor. There's just no time to sit around and _figure it out._ Still, Ezra wishes there was. Maybe if they were under less pressure, if it wasn't a matter of survival, if they weren't being hunted, if the Jedi Order never fell . . .

But it did. There's nobody else left. Just Kanan. And Ezra is doing a bang-up job of keeping the Jedi legacy going. He couldn't even pass his first test. What makes it even worse is that he _knows_ why Kanan took him to the Lothal temple—it wasn't about readiness, it was about Anaxes, about his brush with the dark side. He was supposed to prove he was Jedi enough to still be worth the effort. Prove he wasn't going to screw up again. And that worked out _so well_.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Ezra says. Confesses, more like. He can't believe he's even saying it out loud, but—who else is there? _Kanan?_ He can't tell Kanan, he can't disappoint his master _again_ —how many more times can he disappoint Kanan before it's one time too many, before Kanan gives up on him? And the others . . . They wouldn't understand.

Total stranger it is, then.

Evren's looking at him with another one of those weird non-expressions. It makes Ezra want to squirm. Or maybe melt into the deck plating. That'd work too. Evren takes a breath. "Ezra—"

"GET BACK HERE!"

Ezra jumps as Chopper rockets into the crew lounge, clutching a spanner and honking gleefully. Zeb careens after him. "When I get my hands on you—"

"Human brat + Lasat brute = think fast!" Chopper jeers, hurling the spanner. At Ezra. He raises his hands instinctively, manages to catch it before it hits him in the face—Chopper twirls around midair, trailing exhaust, and then reverses direction, blasting past Zeb as he overshoots and nearly runs into the ladder.

Zeb snarls in frustration. He skids to a halt and stomps a few steps after Chopper, then rounds on Ezra. "Give that here," he says. "I'm gonna take that tin can apart piece by piece—"

"Okay, okay!" Ezra says, fumbling the spanner. It clatters to the ground. His face burns as he scrambles to pick it up again—and then he yelps as his head bangs into Zeb's.

Zeb recoils and falls on his backside, clutching his forehead. He glares at Ezra as he surges back to his feet and lunges to grab him by the shirtfront. Ezra tries to slip out of his grasp, but he's cornered, and Zeb drags him in close and gives him a shake. "Clumsy little— _hkghkk!_ "

Zeb seems to choke on nothing. He doubles over, hacking and wheezing, losing his grip on Ezra's shirt. Ezra scrambles back a few paces. The Force is—there's something _off_ , like in the temple, when Evren broke through the door—

"All right, there?" Evren's saying, slowly uncoiling from his seat. He moves towards Zeb, all friendly concern. "That sounds unpleasant—do you need a drink?"

Zeb waves him off, though his eyes are watering and he's still coughing every few seconds. "'M fine," he gets out. "Just—spanner, give it here—"

"Of course," says Evren, and the spanner flies from the floor to his hand. He offers it handle-first with a wry smile. "How go the repairs?"

"Ugh," Zeb says shortly. He takes the spanner, hefts it a little, and looks over at Ezra. "Watch it next time, will you?"

"Yeah, whatever," says Ezra.

Zeb rolls his eyes, turns to leave. Then he spins around, moves like he's about to rush Ezra again—

Ezra skips backwards. His leg clips the side of the holoprojector. He falls.

Zeb bursts out laughing. "No wonder you couldn't complete your little Jedi test thing." Shaking his head, he finally, _finally_ leaves.

Ezra stares after him. He bites the inside of his cheek and blinks hard a few times. Then he picks himself up, inhales sharply, and kicks the holoprojector, hard. Which . . . doesn't actually help; all it does is make his foot hurt.

And make him look like a bratty kid. _Way to live down to your creepy hallucination's expectations, Bridger._

"So," he says, and it's too bright and too cheerful and _fake, fake, fake._ "Uh. That happened."

Evren exhales. "So it did." He eyes the corridor for a minute, then focuses on Ezra and says, "Does that _happen_ often?"

 _Keep it together._ "Zeb and Chopper fighting?"

"You being dragged into it."

Ezra snorts. _Keep. It. Together._ "All the time. It's just how they are. I don't think Chopper likes me much, but then, it's _Chopper_ , and I'm pretty sure the only person he likes at all is Hera. And Zeb is . . ." He shrugs. "We get along okay. Most of the time."

Evren's still frowning, though. "You flinched when he moved towards you."

"Well, _yeah_ , Zeb's like three times my mass."

"Exactly." The Force around Evren is—it's like with the giant fyrnock. The moment Ezra pointed it at the Inquisitor and told it to _kill_. Not the exact feeling, but the threat, the pressure of something terrifying and powerful waking up. After a few strained seconds, Evren closes his eyes. Slowly, slowly, the sense of danger fades, until it's—not gone, but . . . quieter. "You did not deserve that," he says. "Any of it."

"It's not a big deal," says Ezra. And it's not, or it shouldn't be, but the fact that Evren . . . did _something_ to Zeb and made him _stop_? That's . . . it means a lot. And it probably shouldn't because Ezra is pretty damn sure that was the dark side, but—

"Are you hurt?" Evren gestures at his head.

"Huh? Oh—nah, just bruised," he says. "It'll be fine."

Neither of them says anything for a while. Ezra rubs the painful bump on his head and tries to come with something, _anything_ to say. If he's not careful he'll start blathering about every single awful thing he saw in that temple, just to get it out of his _brain_ , and that's—yeah, no, not doing that.

"You sure you have to go?" Ezra blurts out instead. Which is almost worse.

Evren swallows visibly, pulls a tight-looking smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "It's not my decision. I can't just . . . I'm sorry."

". . . I wish there was more time." It comes out small and pitiful, and Ezra could kick himself—he doesn't know Evren, not really, and why should Evren care about some random wannabe Jedi? Guy's got enough to deal with already.

"If I ever figure out this time travel nonsense, you'll be the first to know," says Evren. The smile shades a little more real, and the Force goes warm again, a brief flare of—affection? Concern?

 _Why?_

 **o.O.o**

All too soon, Hera announces that they're coming in for landing. Ezra runs back to his cabin and returns with a drawstring bag, black and printed with an eerily familiar six-spoked insignia in white. "For your lightsabers," he says. "Since you don't have anywhere else to put them and all."

Evren accepts the bag, touched but uneasy. "This symbol . . . what is it?"

"Empire," says Ezra. "Snagged that while I was undercover as a cadet at the Imperial academy—long story."

And no time to tell it. Evren detaches his sabers from his belt and stows them away. Tries not to dissolve into worry at the _sadness_ in Ezra, the way he grows quieter and quieter as the minutes tick down.

"So, uh. Any last tips?" Ezra says, all too brightly.

Stars, he deserves better.

Maybe Evren can still help, a bit. He's seen too many Jedi pushed past breaking point, and if that _torture temple_ was any indication, Ezra's mentor is hardly up to the task of preparing him for the realities of existing as an emotional being. Evren takes a breath. "At the risk of—no. _Contrary to_ what the Jedi believe, fear is not your enemy. Nor is rage, or hate, or pain. You _will_ experience 'dark' emotions; it's inevitable. All that matters is that you do not use your passions as an excuse to hurt people. You, and you alone, decide your actions."

Ezra coughs. "Right. Um. Okay."

Evren winces. "Too melodramatic?" he says ruefully.

"Liiiiittle bit."

"Sorry."

"Pffft. I—I think I get it, though. Thanks."

"Your feelings are valid and important and they do not make you evil," Evren says, almost sing-song. Ridiculous, yes, but— _remember this, please, remember this and don't destroy yourself for_ them—

"I get it, already!" Ezra laughs.

There's a metallic _thunk_ , and a hiss, and . . . and they've arrived.

Kanan and Hera emerge from the cockpit; Sabine wanders out of her quarters and punches Zeb in the arm on her way towards the lounge. Chopper rolls into view from . . . wherever he was lurking, muttering to himself.

For a long moment, the entire crew waits in the corridor, eyeing Evren. He stands, smiles, and bows to Hera once more. "You have my deepest gratitude for your assistance," he says. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she says, sounding a bit taken aback. She clears her throat. "All right, people, let's offload our cargo and pick up supplies. I want us out of here before dark."

One by one, the _Ghost_ 's crew and passenger clamber down the ladder to the cargo hold. The docking ramp lowers, and they spill out into the open cylinder of the hangar bay. Above, the circular slice of sky still visible is the aching blue of afternoon, cloudless and perfect; syrupy gold sunlight slants partway down the sides of the hangar walls but leaves the ground in shadow. Evren shoulders the bag, lingers at the base of the ramp.

"Watch your six, Straik," Sabine says airily, loping over to the hangar's stash of repulsorlift pallets.

Zeb gives a desultory wave and follows suit; Hera gives a short nod. Kanan, though, steps closer to Evren, stops on the razor edge of hostile distance. "Stay out of trouble," he says, green eyes hard.

Evren smiles wider. "Of course, Master Jedi."

Kanan's gaze drops to Ezra. "Come on," he says brusquely, jerking his chin and then turning away.

Ezra hesitates, though. He glances at Evren out of the corner of his eye. "Will you be okay?"

He's three and a half millennia out of time, his very existence is a threat to the new powers that be, and he has no idea what to do. He _grins._ "Of course. Take care, Ezra."

"Yeah. You, too."

 **o.O.o**

The Lothal spaceport is quieter than Evren expected. Even under occupation, it's not a hub of Imperial activity—a few patrols here and there, the odd aggressively military shuttle coming in for a landing or taking off from the hangars, but otherwise occupied near-exclusively by civilian ships.

On the one hand: good. They'll be no threat to him, unlike these new Imperials. On the other, he admits privately, he's not looking forward to interacting with them. Or . . . anyone, really. What is he, here? Nobody. Nothing. He's terrible at _people_ , and the only people he knows anymore are this ship's crew, and they don't seem too keen on keeping him around. Except for Ezra, but . . .

And _there's_ a lovely mess of unanswered questions and unvoiced worries and if the Jedi of this time are, or were, anything like those of his own . . . and he _doesn't_ know this crew, not really, but the interactions he has seen are hardly reassuring—

And he needs to find a way home. Without knowing where to begin. Without knowing how he got here in the first place. Without any of his old allies or resources or even rank to fall back upon.

. . . He can't think about that yet. Prioritize. Focus. Find a safe place, find a means of supporting himself, avoid official attention, work from there.

Evren looks back at the _Ghost_ , or at least the parts of it he can see through the hangar access doors. Sabine and Zeb appear to be loading crates onto a pallet, and the droid is doing something to one of the landing struts. The others . . . He can still sense the edges of Kanan's hostility. Hera's quiet reserve.

Ezra's turmoil.

Evren wants to turn around and give him the basic outline of how to shield his mind. Or possibly yell at Kanan for failing to do it himself. But that might very well make it worse for Ezra . . .

He shakes his head hard, faces forward, and keeps walking.

The concourse is hardly crowded; the staff and commuters going about their business barely glance at him. Convenient. Even on Nar Shaddaa, people noticed the Sith in their midst—but then, on Nar Shaddaa he always wore his lightsabers openly, and Force-sensitives of either faction were a common sight.

No longer, apparently. And that's . . . he's not sure how to feel about that. Sad? Horrified?

 _Later._ He'll figure it out later.

He shoulders the drawstring bag and sidesteps a very large Weequay in a business suit. The spaceport's signs are few and far between, but soon enough he orients himself and sets off towards the exit.

He hasn't gone more than a few meters when he sees a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. White armor. A _lot_ of white armor. At least a dozen soldiers—stormtroopers—stomping along purposefully. Evren keeps his stride measured and calm, and gives them a wide berth as they proceed . . . back . . . the way he came . . .

"Be prepared for anything," one of the troopers says, his modulated voice cutting through the ambient noise of the concourse tinny but clear. "This ship matches the description of a freighter involved in the terrorist attacks on Empire Day. There may be fugitive Jedi aboard."

Evren angles off to the side, finds shelter between the wall and a scraggly potted plant. He breathes. Reaches out through the Force towards the shaken but still-bright presence at the very edge of his range.

 _Ezra, incoming!_

Then he wraps the Force around himself, shrouding himself from view, and darts after the advancing stormtroopers.

 **o.O.o**

 _tbc_


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** . . . Well, I completely forgot to post this here even though it's been up on AO3 since April. Oops.

 **Chapter 5: Roll For Initiative**

 _In which a squad of stormtroopers has a very bad day indeed._

 **o.O.o**

Ezra freezes as urgent silence flares in his mind. "Guys," he says. "Guys, something's wrong. I think the Imperials know we're here."

"What makes you say that?" says Kanan.

". . . Just a feeling." Easier to lie than argue about Evren and his motives again. Ezra seizes a repulsorlift pallet and starts pushing it back towards the _Ghost_ 's boarding ramp. "Come on, we gotta pack up and get out of here—"

"Calm down," Kanan says, circling the pallet to block his path. "I know it's been a rough day, but there's no reason to—"

"Kanan, please, _trust me_ on this."

"I do trust you. But I don't sense—"

"Well, I do, so—"

"Ezra, you're panicking."

"I am _not_ panicking!"

Kanan raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. Ezra bites back a growl of frustration—that'd go over real well—and says, "You're always telling me to trust my instincts. And right now they're saying _get out right now_."

Kanan hesitates.

Then Sabine's voice rings out through the hangar. "We've got company."

As one, Kanan and Ezra turn towards the hangar doors. Stormtroopers, a lot of them, closing fast.

"All of you, on the ground!" their leader barks as they move to half-encircle the crew, blasters raised.

"Is there a problem, sir?" Kanan says with an appropriately nervous but innocent laugh, raising his hands.

"I said _get on the ground_ , rebel scum—"

Yeah, they're not getting out of this without a fight. Ezra shoves the pallet into the leader, sending him and the stormtroopers on either side of him tumbling to the ground. As one, the crew goes for their weapons, and the other troopers open fire.

"Chopper, prep for takeoff!" Hera snaps out.

There's a muffled honk from inside the ship. Hopefully Chopper won't take too long. They're outnumbered, bad, and they're pinned against the _Ghost_ with no way out but, well, up.

Ezra crouches behind a stack of offloaded cargo that they're probably going to have to leave behind, taking potshots at the stormtroopers with his energy sling. Kanan has his lightsaber drawn and he's guarding Sabine and Hera as they retreat towards the ship, firing all the way.

A roar—Zeb was the furthest from the _Ghost_ with his cargo pallet and now he's charging back, bo rifle in hand, swinging it in a wide arc that smashes into a trooper's helmet on the way.

For a minute, it looks like they'll be able to hold out long enough to escape. The stormtroopers can't advance to cut them off from the _Ghost_ without getting close enough for Kanan and Zeb to take them out. And with Ezra, Sabine, and Hera keeping them at a distance anyway . . . They just have to give Chopper enough time to—

Engines. Too low to be the _Ghost_. The whole hangar darkens as an Imperial gunship moves into position over it, blocking out the pale evening sky.

 _Oh, crap._

The gunners open fire.

 **o.O.o**

Evren sprints into the hangar, skids to a halt when the Force screams _danger_ and a stuttering hail of green light smashes into the _Ghost_ from above. For one sickening moment he thinks it's too late, _too bloody late_.

But somehow, impossibly, the _Ghost_ 's shields come online in time.

"Inside! Go!" Hera shouts.

Evren allows his Force shroud to fade. No security cameras that he can see, no stormtroopers looking in his direction—he refocuses, this time on one of the overturned crates strewn across the hangar floor, the mechanical parts inside spilling out like viscera. He launches the crate at the gunship's starboard stabilizer fin, exhaling as it collides. There's a bloom of fire, an explosion—the ship begins to list hard, about to go into a spiral, and the pilot guides it away from the hangar to avoid a catastrophic crash.

There. Clear shot to atmo, at least until reinforcements arrive.

The rest of the stormtroopers—seven left, easily dealt with even sans lightsabers—recover from the sudden loss of air support more quickly than Evren would've liked, getting back down to the tedious business of shooting at the _Ghost_ crew as they pile into the ship. They're focused, he'll give them that. Either that or they just can't see him through those ridiculous helmets.

Poor fools. He attacks from behind, striding forward, hand outstretched, seizing the nearest trooper by the neck with a thread of Force. He flicks his wrist. The trooper makes a faint noise, and there's a muffled wet _crack_ , and he goes limp. _Six_. Before the body can crumple to the ground, Evren draws level and pushes it into the next-closest stormtrooper.

Killing that one is a simple matter of calling a fallen blaster to hand and shooting him point-blank while he's still trying to pick himself up off the ground. _Five_.

By this point the rest have noticed him. They're more spread out, and he's no marksman. More pressingly, he can't deflect their blasterfire. He strafes left, angling towards the _Ghost_ , and sends another crate skidding towards the stormtroopers. The nearest two survivors dive to avoid it. They come up firing. The Force sings and burns and twists and he moves with it, sliding past their blaster bolts, closer, closer—he reaches out, wrenches their weapons from their hands, fires twice.

 _Three_.

The _Ghost_ crew's retreat is nearly complete—Garazeb is the last still outside the ship, shooting at the stormtroopers; Ezra hovers on the boarding ramp, eyes wide. The engines howl in preparation for takeoff.

"Hurry!" Ezra yells. At Evren. An—an invitation . . .?

Kill first, contemplate later.

Zeb has slain another stormtrooper— _two_ —and is edging up the ramp. Evren leaps, twists, lands behind the last pair of troopers. One yelps in surprise, whirling, too slow, too late. He grins. Two more blaster bolts. Two more bodies.

 _Zero_.

And then the Force tugs his attention to the hangar doors, and the veritable _wall_ of white armor pouring in through the gap. At their head, a man in grey, crackling with focused lethal intent; he carries a weapon much like Zeb's loose in one hand. He reminds Evren of Imperial Intelligence agents.

"FIRE!" he shouts.

"Come on, _come on_!" Ezra is saying, voice high and desperate and that is a _lot_ of blasters aimed in their direction—

He can't take that many at once, not without his lightsabers.

Evren runs for the boarding ramp, red bolts ricocheting off the ship's shields and peppering the ground around him. He throws himself into the ship after Ezra moments before the ramp retracts. The ship takes flight. A sense of pressure as it rises and the inertial dampeners stutter, catch, come online—and they're clear.

"You okay?" Ezra says, crowding close.

Evren waves him off emphatically. "I'm not injured." _Get away from me_ , he doesn't say, but Ezra is already retreating, and it's . . . he's fine. "What of the others?"

"Little scorched but otherwise all right. Uh. Thanks for the heads-up."

Evren lets out a breath. "Anytime," he says.

"Thought we'd got rid of you," says Zeb, from the balcony above the cargo bay.

"Did you miss me, Garazeb?" Evren flutters his eyelashes and smiles winsomely.

Zeb snorts. "You wish. Can't wait to see Kanan's face when he realizes—"

"When I realize wh— _what are you doing here_?"

Oh, lovely, the Jedi's arrived in all his ill-tempered glory, scowling down at Evren and Ezra from beside Zeb. Evren beams at him, and it feels unsteady—unhinged. "Avoiding certain doom."

Kanan stares for a moment, then says, low and dangerous, "If you had something to do with the Imperials finding us . . ."

"But of course, and then I turned 'round and killed half a dozen of them and fled onto your ship on a whim, _obviously_."

"Wouldn't put it past you," Kanan mutters.

"Since when do we leave people behind to get shot to death by Agent Kallus?" Ezra says.

"Ezra—" Kanan clamps his jaw shut for a moment, then says, "Most people aren't _Sith_."

"I'm dreadfully sorry for not wanting to die at your convenience, Master Jedi," Evren says tartly. Then he looks at Ezra. "This . . . Kallus. Fascinating facial hair, sour affect, interesting choice in weaponry?"

"Yeah, that's him," grunts Zeb, leaning his elbows onto the railing. "Slimy bastard's got no right to that rifle. _Karavast_. Is it just me, or are the Imps getting better at tracking us down?"

"Avoiding the Inquisitor is one thing. Avoiding the Imperial military is another. But I'm still not convinced it wasn't some _other_ factor," says Kanan.

" _I did not betray you_ ," Evren enunciates, turning to face Kanan fully, staring up at him. He keeps his posture straight but relaxed, hands open, gaze steady. "They were already en route to your hangar when I overheard them and doubled back to assist."

"So you say."

"He warned me," Ezra says suddenly, stepping foward, almost in front of Evren. "Before the Imperials reached us. That was how I knew they were coming."

Evren glances at him for a moment, startled but—but grateful. Kanan, meanwhile, looks as if he's bitten into something rotten. He inhales, mouth twisting. ". . . Crew lounge. As soon as we're in hyperspace. We need to talk this over."

 **o.O.o**

When Kanan called this 'family meeting,' as Sabine puts it, he still hoped that someone, _anyone_ , would see reason. He didn't expect it to turn into a discussion about whether or not to _let the Sith stay_.

But Ezra hasn't been thinking straight since Anaxes, if not earlier. Sabine made _fruit smoothies_ with the Sith. Zeb seems to value messing with people—in this case, Kanan—more than heeding any warnings. And Hera . . .

His stomach drops when she says, "You certainly demonstrated your combat skills in that hangar. Might be useful."

And the Sith smiles and ducks his head like he's _embarrassed_ and Kanan cannot believe that his crew, his family, is falling for the act.

All eyes turn to him. He crosses his arms, tilts his head back. "You're Sith," Kanan says flatly.

Straik throws him a withering look. "Yes, we've established that."

"And you're willing to work with _Jedi_?"

"If you'll work with me."

"Why should I?" Kanan steps forward, crowding Straik, who visibly tenses. "Give me one good reason I should let you anywhere near my crew." _My padawan_.

Straik doesn't back away. If anything, he leans forward, just a fraction of a degree. "To keep an eye on a potential threat, if nothing else. You don't want a vintage Sith wandering around the galaxy unsupervised, now, do you?"

"I want you messing with my people's heads even less."

"Y'know, we _can_ occasionally be trusted to make our own choices," Sabine says under her breath.

"Not about this!" Kanan breaks eye contact with Straik long enough to glare at her; she scowls back, unimpressed, as he says, "Sabine, you don't know . . . Look, trust _me_ when I say that—"

" _I_ don't know? I'm Mandalorian—I know my history, probably better than you do—"

"Okay, that's _enough_ , you two," Hera cuts in.

There's an uncomfortable silence. Then Straik says softly, "Your cause seems like a worthy one. I want to help." His voice, his expression, they all show nothing but sincerity. The Force, though, coils and snaps at Kanan, mocking.

"Why?" Kanan demands, over Hera's half-formed attempt to hush him. "Why would you do that? What do you get out of it?"

"Aside from the opportunity to do something _right_? If by aiding you I can remain beyond your Empire's reach, then everyone wins." Straik pauses. "Except the Empire. Which is the whole point."

"Kanan. Please," Ezra says.

"He's got my vote," Zeb says, off-handed. Then he grins and cuffs Ezra's shoulder. "Just be careful the new guy doesn't show you up too bad."

Sabine is still glaring vibroknives at Kanan. "I'm for it. Join the party."

"I'm sorry, love," Hera says gently, with exactly the right tone and exactly the wrong sense of stubborn, unapologetic _I'm right, you're wrong_ behind it. "I understand your feelings, but it's for the best."

His _feelings_? They're the ones who aren't listening to the _facts_! This has nothing to do with his—

"We'd be glad to have you," Hera says, louder. She puts a hand on Kanan's shoulder, tugging him away from Straik; Kanan shrugs her off, irritated, but goes with it. What else is he supposed to do?

"Fine," Kanan mutters. "You've all clearly made up your minds."

"Thank you," says Straik, giving a pretentious, smarmy little bow.

Kanan grits his teeth. He gets the feeling he'll be doing that a lot.

 **o.O.o**

 _tbc_


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** I'm back!

Final warning before things get really rough: Redshift is not a FANfic. It is a bitter, spiteful, rage-fuelled Take That to Star Wars: Rebels. If you want a sympathetic portrayal of the original Ghost crew, hit the back button and look elsewhere, or just watch the show itself. Please don't complain to me that I'm not giving Kanan and the gang a fair shake. I am well aware of my narrative unfairness. I am also dead fucking tired of the _show's_ narrative unfairness. I like to hope that in SWR's case, it's unintentional.

In mine, it is 100% deliberate, with malice aforethought.

With that said . . . enjoy.

 **Chapter 6: Routine Disruptions**

 _In which the crew settles into its new equilibrium._

 **o.O.o**

Evren spends a restless night on the couch in the crew lounge, drifting in and out of bloody dreams. Eventually, he gives up on sleep, and wanders into the galley to make tea.

Finding everything takes a few minutes; heating the water and steeping the tea takes a few minutes more. When it's done he presses his back to the wall and holds the mug close, arms tucked in, head bent until the rising steam drifts and curls over his face. He closes his eyes for a moment and breathes. It helps. Three and a half thousand years, and that much, at least, hasn't changed.

Heat seeps into his hands through the gloves. Gradually, the surface of the tea calms. The waking world may be strange, but Vitiate is long gone. The war is over. He'd appreciate it if his mind would concern itself with the new present, this future with neither Sith nor Jedi, and a Republic that became an Empire.

The Force is empty, and the emptiness is _wrong._

"Good morning."

Hera. Evren murmurs a return greeting, then falls silent, unsure of how much interaction is appropriate or desired. Or how welcome he really is, here.

Hera starts preparing breakfast for herself, cracking eggs into a pan and topping off the kettle to boil again. She moves with practiced confidence—which is honestly astounding given how early it is—but the Force is edged with her well-disguised tension.

Fair.

"Sleep well?" Hera asks.

"Yes, thank you."

"If you're staying, you'll need real quarters eventually. We might need to shuffle things around over the next few days."

Evren winces. "I apologize for the inconvenience, Captain."

"Don't worry about it." Hera flips the eggs deftly and glances at him over her shoulder. "And you can call me 'Hera.' We're not big on titles, here, at least when we're not on missions."

"Understood. Thank you."

"Or formality in general. This isn't a military ship. We're not a unit, we're a family."

So was Meliah. "I see."

Hera scoops the eggs onto a plate and dusts them with something spicy and aromatic, retrieves a fork from a drawer, and turns to him with an amused half-smile. "What I'm trying to say is that you can relax. I'm not going to throw you out the airlock for taking up space."

"Oh, you're not the one I'm worried about," Evren says lightly.

Hera's smile turns just a little sharp as she takes a bite without breaking eye contact. "This is my ship. And if you prove yourself a threat to this crew, you'll answer to me." Then she shrugs. "But so far you haven't, so like I said. Relax."

Apparently the possibility of Kanan attempting to space him is not to be discussed. Or she simply read his comment as an insult to her, which was not his intention at all. ". . . I take your meaning, Captain—er, Hera." Evren puts the slightest note of embarrassment into the name, smiles nervously, looks down.

It's almost sincere. A show of vulnerability. _Not a threat._

"So," he says after a moment. "How can I help with day-to-day operations? Is there a task roster, or is it an as-needed basis?"

"What can you do?"

Aside from killing people . . . "Electronics repair and ship maintenance, some slicing, basic first aid, cooking. I can also loom ominously." She doesn't laugh. He shifts his weight, swallows. "But, er, if there's something else you need I'd be glad to learn."

Hera raises an eyebrow. "Cooking, huh?"

Evren smiles, and this time it is genuine. "Everybody needs a hobby."

She glances down at her half-eaten eggs, then sets the plate aside. "Show me."

 **o.O.o**

Breakfast is excruciating.

The galley counter is large enough to fit all six humanoids. Evren is jammed between Zeb and Hera, directly across from Sabine; Ezra sits to her right, by the wall, and Kanan on her left with his long legs angled away from the counter. Evren is . . . very glad he's still in his armor. At least his flesh knee won't bruise from repeated knocks.

And armor blunts the urgent pressure of _bodies_ and _people_ and _trapped_.

Sabine is reading something on a datapad, shoveling pancakes into her mouth and ignoring everybody. Not a morning person. If only that were true of—

"So. Welcome to the team," Zeb says, jostling Evren's shoulder with an elbow. "You ready to kick in some Imperial heads?"

He laughs uncomfortably. His skin is crawling. "Can't wait."

"Saw you fight, yesterday—not bad. Bet you'll make short work of that hairless bastard next time he shows up. No offense, Kanan, Ezra," Zeb adds with a condescending nod at the Jedi.

Kanan's eyes narrow. "We don't need—"

"The extra firepower will be helpful, but I'll just be glad if everyone stays alive," says Hera. She stares at Kanan until she catches his gaze. Then she smiles warmly at him. Evren watches, fascinated, as Kanan's ire fades to a low simmer.

Interesting.

Hera deftly guides the conversation elsewhere. Recent missions, future plans, the ship's current status. Nothing that requires Evren's input unless he's addressed directly. He picks at his pancakes and tries not to think about the enclosed space and the way Hera and Zeb's arms bump into his every few seconds. He keeps breathing. Doesn't touch fork to plate unless he's got the shaking under control.

The flow of conversation is halting, awkward. A rhythm tripping over itself. Kanan is quiet, almost as monosyllabic as Sabine, but there are empty beats where Evren can see him almost, _almost_ speak up. This isn't normal for him, then—Evren's fault, of course. Kanan throws cold looks his way every so often, in case there were any doubt.

He'd _love_ to not be here but his standard excuse—washing the dishes—won't take him out of range since the galley is so bloody _cramped_ , and he doesn't know the ship or its maintenance needs well enough to use that.

Zeb is loud, always ready with a boisterous remark or a backhanded comment. He digs at people, constantly trying to provoke them. Sabine, when she bothers to respond, does so in kind, parry and riposte; Zeb seems to enjoy their exchanges without being offended by her barbs. Kanan is by turns an easy target and a completely impervious one, but he's not the focus of Zeb's efforts. _Ezra_ bears the brunt of it. And while Ezra does snap at Zeb in response, Evren can sense the hurt, and his familiarity with that hurt. His resignation to it.

Nobody says anything, nobody tries to stop it. Sabine _laughs._

Evren _can't_ stop it, he can't make Zeb choke on his words again without arousing suspicion or turning breakfast into a duel to the death, and the only responses he can think of in the moment will make it _worse_ , turn the others hostile because Zeb is one of their own but Evren is a stranger and Ezra is not worth protecting—

He can't _do_ anything and Ezra is hurting and he _hates it._ He can only sit there and try not to claw off his own skin or lash out and _rip them apart_ —

And despite it all Ezra tries to crack jokes, tries to bring Evren into the conversation—and that's when _Kanan_ usually sees fit to jump in, subtle as a blue lightsaber on Korriban, and shut him down. After a few minutes Ezra seems to give up, and confines himself to muttered sarcasm when Zeb needles him.

Not enough to wound Zeb back, though. Not enough to stop him.

Hera, though—Hera could play them all like quetarras. _When_ she chooses to do so is . . . telling. She doesn't intercede for Ezra, but she'll chide him, oh so gentle, oh so cutting, when he defends himself a bit too well.

And then she turns to Evren and his stomach _drops._ "Thirty-five hundred years, huh? Things must have been very different, back then."

He can't shift away from her without touching Zeb or revealing just how much he doesn't want to have this conversation. He takes a deep, slow breath, and pulls a polite expression across his face like a mask. He's lied to the Emperor's Hand. He can dissemble for this _wretched_ crew. "It's difficult to say. I've only seen the inside of the one spaceport, so far," he says, calm and measured.

"The Great Galactic War lasted decades," Sabine says suddenly, not even looking up from her datapad. "Seen a lot of action?"

Apparently she's done letting him be _shy._ ". . . I suppose."

"You anyone we'd've heard about?"

He's drowning in a pool of other people's body heat with no way out. It's hard to breathe. "Probably not." Which is . . . probably true. He hopes. The Emperor's Wrath was a shadow of a rumor for his entire life, until it was suddenly _his title._ And while Baras's destruction was widely publicized, his own role was mercifully downplayed, at least for the general populace— _one of the Emperor's personal agents_ , not _Lord Evren Straik, Emperor's Wrath._ And after that . . .

"You've killed Jedi," says Kanan.

Evren looks at him, expressionless. Cold. This, he knows how to handle. "Yes. It was a war. We were on opposite sides."

"How many?"

He twists his face to affront and disgust _._ "I don't keep count as if people's lives are marks on a _scoreboard_."

"So you've lost count, is what you're saying."

"Do _you_ know how many people you've killed? Or are you trying to pick a fight over quite literally ancient history?"

"Seems pretty present to me," Kanan says, almost a growl. He stabs at a bite of pancakes.

"We're all on the same side now, though," says Ezra, voice pitched high and anxious.

"Exactly," Hera says smoothly. "I'm sure you'll be an asset to the crew, and to the Rebellion."

Evren chokes down a hysterical giggle. Asset. He's been here less than twenty-four hours and already somebody considers him their _weapon._ He wants to Force-blast everyone away, he wants to scream, he wants—

He wraps the Force tight around him, another mask, another shield. He smiles at Hera. "I certainly hope I can help. Although I'm afraid I'm a bit hazy on exactly what the Rebellion _is_. A loose organization, I take it, but do you have any contact at all with—"

"Don't even try," Sabine says wearily. "She's not gonna tell you anything. Never tells _us_ anything, either. Security issue."

Hera looks apologetic and feels completely unrepentant in the Force. "I trust you all, but we can't afford the risk. The more people who know my contact, the more danger they're in if any of us are captured."

Smart. The Balmorran Resistance uses similar tactics. One connection up the chain of command per cell. "I can live with need-to-know," Evren says with a shrug. His elbows brush against Hera and Zeb's arms.

"Glad to hear it," says Hera.

He smiles vaguely and pulls his elbows in, tight to his sides.

There is a very long and very painful silence. Nobody seems to quite know what to say, where to go from there.

"These are really good pancakes, Hera," Ezra says.

"Yeah, new recipe?" says Zeb.

Hera smiles and shakes her head. "Actually, they're Evren's."

Kanan starts coughing.

"Huh. Not bad," Sabine says.

Kanan chokes down the mouthful he's working on, washing it down with a long gulp of caf. Then he glances at Evren, just a few seconds of eye contact— _disgust hostility distrust anger fear_ —and sets his fork on the countertop with a sharp, final _click._

Evren looks away and stares down at the remains of his meal. "Glad you're enjoying them."

 **o.O.o**

After breakfast—or half a breakfast, in Kanan's case—Kanan pulls Ezra aside for a _talk._

"About what happened yesterday," Kanan says. "I left you to fend for yourself during that flight."

Ezra shrugs. "No worries. Had an interesting conversation." _You left me to fend for myself in that temple and I watched you all die,_ he doesn't say. Kanan would've asked about the temple if he wanted to hear about it. Bringing it up on his own . . . that'd be just fantastic, whining about how hard it all was, making excuses for why he failed.

Kanan grimaces. "Yeah, well, I do worry. Especially when it comes to Sith." He pauses. "Did Straik try to turn you?"

That's what's got him in a mood? Still? Ezra makes an irritated noise. "No, he literally just asked some stuff about history and then we talked for a while."

"About what?"

"I don't know. Stuff."

"The Force?"

"Yeah, a little. So?"

Kanan looks at him like he's just admitted to doing something incredibly stupid. "So you practically _invited_ him to start trying to corrupt you—"

"Look, just because you're annoyed that you liked his pancakes—"

"This has nothing to do with the pancakes, Ezra!"

"Landing in five," Hera crackles over the intercom while Ezra's still trying to come up with a snippy retort.

Kanan shakes his head in the suddenly awkward silence. "Don't know why I even try," he mutters.

"Thought you said there is no try," Ezra says, all bright and sarcastic to cover the miserable twisting dread in his gut. He's pushing too far. He can't afford to do that after yesterday. Kanan's going to give up on him and it'll be his fault.

The temple tried to tell him that. It was all illusions, but none of them were lies.

Kanan sighs. "Yeah, well. It's my duty to train you, even when you make it difficult."

 **o.O.o**

They've landed on some moon that might not even have a name, still near Lothal but far enough off the beaten hyperlanes to avoid Imperial patrols. It's a warm day, sunny and bright, and the sky's so blue it's almost purple. The _Ghost_ is snug up against a decent-sized mesa, on a flat area of bare dirt and scraggly grass. Perfect spot for lightsaber practice.

Which is going about as well as it usually does.

"You're not focusing," Kanan says. "Concentrate. Clear your mind. Don't let anything distract you from the Force."

"But—"

" _Concentrate._ "

"It's not the Force that's the problem!" Ezra protests. Well, not the only problem. "I don't get it, this whole kata, the moves are all over the place and it doesn't make _sense_ —"

"If you were _concentrating_ , it would make perfect sense. Letting yourself get frustrated, letting yourself get _distracted_? It's not the Jedi way, and it will only make it worse."

"Right," Ezra mutters. "And next thing you know I'll be falling to the dark side."

"That's not funny." Kanan's jaw tenses. He glances at the ship, and, Ezra would bet, straight through the hull to one occupant in particular. "Ezra, you have to be careful. Now more than ever."

". . . I know."

"Do you? Really? Because you keep saying you understand, but I have to wonder . . ."

"I screwed up, okay?" Ezra says. "I _know_ I screwed up, with the fyrnocks, and I'm sorry—"

"It's not just the fyrnocks." Kanan whisks the lightsaber out of Ezra's hands, clips it to his belt, folds his arms. "We need to talk about the temple."

Ezra mirrors him, shoulders hunching slightly. Oh no. "What about it?"

"You said that the Sith saved your life. What happened, exactly?"

Ezra drops his gaze. Yeah, not gonna mention the part where Kanan "died" in front of him, or where the rest of the crew . . . no. Stick to the _pertinent details_. He's done enough to convince Kanan he's a terrible Padawan already. "He showed up when the Inquisitor—uh, a vision of the Inquisitor—was about to kill me, and fought it off. And then he helped me find you."

"How?"

Ezra's shoulders tense up even worse. "The Force—following your, your signature, or whatever. Listening for it, kind of."

Kanan raises an eyebrow, _disapproval_ swirling in the Force. "You needed a Sith Lord to walk you through it? It's nothing you haven't done before. It's just like making a connection with a lothcat. I know you could have figured it out if you'd just made the effort to—"

"To _concentrate?_ " Ezra says. His eyes are stinging and his voice is going all ragged and he hates this, he _hates_ it, the way his cheeks burn and the way his throat tightens and the way Kanan _looks_ at him in disappointment at his outburst. He wants to dissolve away to nothing. He tries to keep breathing normally, but it's so, so hard when Kanan is—he's right. Ezra should have been able to work it out on his own. He doesn't think Evren was trying to be anything but helpful, but he shouldn't have needed the help in the first place.

All he does is drag people down.

Kanan sighs, then, and reaches for Ezra's shoulder. His grip is solid and reassuring. "I don't blame you for being a little confused, Ezra."

He leans into the touch. They're okay? They have to be okay. "It's just . . . difficult," he mumbles.

Kanan nods sympathetically. "Sith are master manipulators. Just . . . be aware that the dark side is a corruption of the Force, a quick and easy way to power, but at a terrible cost. You don't need it in order to succeed. I know you're better than that." A quiet snort. "Don't always act like it, but you are."

"Wait, what?" Ezra says, backing up a step. "What are you talking about? I haven't used the dark side since Anaxes."

Kanan's hand drops as Ezra pulls away. Hurt, and then frustration, flash across his face. "Just—just run the kata again. Do it right this time," he says, and he shoves the lightsaber at Ezra.

Ezra stares at him for a second, then tries to arrange himself to restart.

He gets three steps into the kata before Kanan's criticizing his footwork and telling him to focus again.

 **o.O.o**

Evren is negotiating use of Zeb's spare toothbrush—unused, he hopes, but at this point he's getting desperate; his teeth feel _fuzzy_ —when Kanan comes stomping back onto the _Ghost_ in a billowing cloud of barely-controlled irritation.

"How was training?" Zeb says slyly.

Kanan glares at him. Then he notices Evren, and glares harder. "Fine."

"Really? Thought I heard screaming, earlier. Kid didn't lop off anything important, did he?"

A snort. "Not this time."

Zeb guffaws as if this is the very pinnacle of wit. "Guess the Force really is with you."

Kanan adds a bit more venom to his glare as he passes Evren, presumably heading for the cockpit. Crawling back to Hera, perhaps. She's ever so talented at soothing his ruffled feathers.

Evren manages to keep his mouth shut and his anger leashed. _Such faith in your own apprentice, Jedi_ — _it's positively inspiring._

For now, though . . . Finish this, then find Ezra. He gives Zeb a final pleading look. "About that toothbrush."

"Fine, whatever, all yours," Zeb says, his mood apparently much improved by insulting Ezra's competence.

Charming. Evren gives a short bow. "My thanks, Garazeb. Might I avail myself of it now?"

"You owe me, Straik." It's not a joke.

A Force-forsaken _toothbrush._

Evren smiles, hating him, then winces theatrically and raises a hand to his mouth. "Worth it."

 **o.O.o**

Teeth finally, blessedly clean, Evren exits the _Ghost_ and reaches out through the Force. Ezra is a tight-wound bundle of unhappiness and shame a ways around the base of the mesa.

Evren projects, slightly, enough to give warning of his approach; Ezra's Force signature flares and then goes dimmer than ever in response. It's . . . _upsetting_. He picks his way around a blobby peninsula of stone, then halts—Ezra is in meditative pose atop a flat rock, eyes squeezed shut, shoulders stiff, mouth drawn tight. His breaths are forcibly deep and even, but they shake. The Force, far from the eerie calm Evren's familiar with from Jaesa's meditations, is a cracked veneer of desperate, brutal silence over a—a _mess_.

It'd almost be Sith meditation if it were actually deliberate.

For a moment, he's unsure of what to do. _Are you all right_ is an asinine question when the answer is an obvious and resounding _no._ But a comment like _It seems training went badly_ would be . . . hurtful. Salt in the wound.

Evren exhales. "Mind if I ask what happened?"

All pretense at calm crumbles. Ezra's face scrunches up and he draws his knees to his chest and buries his face in them, arms wrapped around his legs, and takes a few more gulping breaths.

Evren takes a step forward, stops, hesitates, keeps going. He sits cross-legged on the ground to Ezra's right and tries to project—steadiness, warmth, something helpful. Something besides his sudden and intense desire to find Kanan and stab him a few times.

He used to fight back tears after training sessions, too.

"I can't do this," Ezra says.

"What's giving you trouble?"

"Everything? I can't—I can't meditate right and I can't do lightsabers even when it's _basics_ and I—the temple—I _can't._ "

Evren glances at him. "It's . . . frustrating. Being unable to do something that seems simple to other people."

"I shouldn't _be_ frustrated! I can't be frustrated, I'm supposed to be a Jedi and Jedi don't _get_ frustrated!"

"Is that what Kanan told you?" Evren says, oh so very mild.

Ezra raises his head enough to nod.

"Then he's a hypocrite." He leans back, weight braced against his palms behind him. "What were you learning? I might be able to help."

Ezra unfolds and lets his legs dangle off the rock. "Just a saber kata." He meets Evren's gaze for a second or two, then looks away again. "You don't have to—I don't want to waste your time—"

 _"You are not a waste of time,"_ Evren says sharply. He stands up, dusts himself off, and unclips his sabers, offering one hilt-first. "And I _want_ to help."

Ezra's eyes widen. Slowly, he reaches for the lightsaber, as if he expects it to be snatched away. ". . . Okay," he says. "Okay."

Evren nods. "So—which kata?"

Ezra takes a breath, lets it out slow. "Uh. It starts out like this . . .?" He activates the lightsaber and takes up a halfhearted ready stance, blade at an indecipherable angle, elbows sticking out. Then he begins chopping mechanically at the air, hesitating with every step and every sweep of the blade, uncertainty and self-consciousness curdling in the Force.

He trails off, lets his saber hand drop to his side. "Yeah. Um. Something like that."

A few months of training—that should be enough to build at least some muscle memory for basic strikes and counters and footwork. But _definitely_ not enough for this.

"That," Evren says, "is not _basic._ That's for breaking enemy lines without getting shot to pieces."

"And that's . . . bad," Ezra says cautiously.

Evren rakes a hand through his hair, exhaling. "It's at least several years ahead of where you are. It's Soresu, for one thing, but I don't know of anyone who wasn't a prodigy getting through the Shii-Cho fundamentals in under a year." It took him two, and his initial training was frantically accelerated to make up for his _late start._ "And this is intermediate Soresu at the very least."

Ezra looks blank, and ashamed of it. "What's a Soresu?"

Evren blinks. "Ah." He hopes that this is a time traveler's problem—that the terminology has simply changed, that Kanan _fucking_ Jarrus has not been throwing a raw beginner into _intermediate Soresu_ and expecting him to pick up on it immediately.

He doubts it, though.

Ezra is staring at the ground, shoulders tensed again as if he's bracing for recrimination. "Sorry," he says, his voice very small.

"Ezra . . . You have no way of knowing what you haven't been taught. You need not apologize for ignorance. It's not a failing on your part."

Ezra doesn't seem entirely convinced, but a bit of the tension bleeds out of him, and he nods.

 _Warmth_ and _reassurance_ and _steadiness_. Not true peace, but everything he can give nonetheless. Evren cracks a smile, scar dragging it crooked. "Soresu is the third of seven lightsaber forms, and, for the record, I am honestly terrible at it."

"Probably better than me," Ezra says with a terrible, splintery little laugh.

"Eh. Having over a decade of experience does help."

Ezra laughs again. But then he looks up, sudden and wide-eyed, and for a second it's as if he doesn't think he's a burden. "Wait, third of seven—Form III? It's called Form III?"

"It is indeed," Evren says with an encouraging nod. _Not the terminology, then._ He is going to stab Kanan _so much._

Ezra hefts the borrowed lightsaber, thoughtful, eyes almost black in the red glow. "The Inquisitor said Kanan used Form III, a while back."

Well, at least someone in this Force-forsaken time period knows what they're doing. "It's what he was using in the hangar, yes. Soresu is primarily defensive in nature, intended to outlast an enemy, wearing them down or gaining time to escape them."

"Then why was that kata for charging at people? Seems pretty aggressive."

Evren ignites his lightsaber and shifts into the starting stance. "See how the blade is angled across the body? It's meant to catch blasterfire and reflect it back." Slowly, he flows through the motions. "It's all about closing the distance safely so you can kill the larger group. Here, you're dealing with a stray enemy on your left—and now on your right. Very useful in a charge. But you never fully drop your forward guard, you never stop advancing on your foes. In an actual battle the exact sequence of the kata is less important than the tools it gives you to react to a changing situation, of course, but this one would be used as a sort of shield—the Soresu practitioner would be followed by a group of soldiers who'd otherwise be unable to advance." He finishes the kata with a wide sweep. "And _here_ you'd gut everyone in an arc in front of you, allowing your comrades to move in."

Ezra coughs. "That's. Okay then. Wow. Um. A lot, uh, bloodier than I thought?"

"Hardly any blood at all. Lightsabers cauterize on hit," Evren says brightly, and instantly clamps his mouth shut, looks away. Just because he's got the sense of humor of a _knife_. . . "I apologize. That was . . . inappropriate."

There's a deeply uncomfortable silence. Then Ezra says, hesitant, _expecting him to say no_ : "Could you—I mean, would it be okay if you ran that again? And explained all the moves?"

Evren smiles again, softer. "Of course. Guard up, let's walk through it."

 **o.O.o**

 _tbc_


End file.
